Railways & other things

A quick look back a few years, here’s ‘Collier Street’ an N gauge layout commissioned by Peco. The layout was a Paul Lunn design from the N gauge Set Track plan book and I built it adapting the design slightly here and there, using off the shelf products. It subsequently has been used by them for advertising photography, appeared at Warley on their stand, and in the Railway Modeller as a project layout. It was I suppose a micro/cameo layout too, with fully enclosed fascia and a wrap round back scene though at the time I didn’t consider it in cameo terms. An exercise in using set track too, never a favourite of mine, however set track serves a purpose judging by its popularity, and it doesn’t hurt to step outside your comfort zone once in a while. The design was based on…

JEREMY CLACKSON, our transport correspondent, on how TfL is pushing through timetable changes for New Addington trams, just as they had wanted to four months ago

Only the first two trams from New Addington each day will travel through to Wimbledon

Transport for London will tomorrow announce significant timetable changes to the tram network which will, for most of each day, make it impossible in future to travel from New Addington to Wimbledon without changing trams.

There are a number of methods of re-creating inset track and this post describes the method I have used on Canute Road Quay and hopefully its relative simplicity and the effect gained will be of use to other modellers. Although I have covered the process before in multiple posts about Canute Road Quay I thought it would be useful to details the steps I used in one post. The trackwork on Canute Road Quay is a mixture of open sleepered and inset track as seen around such docks / quays to give some variety to the surfaces…

Once I found a way to stop trains wobbling about, I was much more motivated to build things. I could claim this was part of a grand plan to build a realistic operating system but if I’m honest it’s because I like watching the trains rattle round and round, and I wanted a few more wagons on mine.

When I’d nearly finished the second van, I noticed that neither van had a handle for the door. As both of the vans are full of card and fishing weights, this is a not going to make a great difference to their capabilities, but I’m trying to at least pretend that they are there to carry general merchandise this detail is somewhat significant,

I started looking through pictures of real narrow gauge vans. Of course one thing led to another and I ended up adding bits of wire all over the model…

Creating a cardboard mock up is rather an odd thing to do, but it allowed me to experiment with different arrangements and look at things from different angles. Here’s the arrangement I liked the most. From left to right we have: a cafe, the ticket office, a storage container and a maintenance shed for the stock.

I’m encouraged. It combines a sense of purpose with a sense of space and I think this design could capture the feel of a country terminus for a rural tourist line.

Inevitably, 2017 was always going to be different and financially more challenging than 2016 when we welcomed back the Flying Scotsman after a long and protracted absence.

Having said that, we excelled in many areas right across the railway and more than held our own when compared with 2015 (our last comparable year).

Throughout the year, we have successfully run over 50 events with a record breaking Santa Season with over 40,000 visitors and again supported by a large band of working volunteers now numbering nearly 780 right across the railway.

Financially, as expected, we haven’t been able to match our financial and visitors performance when compared to 2016 where we have made a six figure loss. Revenues from pubs, buffets and retail were below target. Although, it’s pleasing to see that our visitor numbers are up by 8% when compared with 2015.

An almost exact Minories, but with an extra couple of platforms or sidings at the front, with a third relief road entering the station. This looks an excellent design, although Graham recently mailed me, saying…

“I’ll tell you now that building a urban layout on arches is much harder than I thought it would be.”

I suppose things like point motors are difficult to fit in, and maintain access if you have built on a solid board below.

Having a free read in WH Smiths, I spotted the cover of the March Hornby Magazine that said, “Modelling central London steam and electric operations in ‘OO'”. Well, I don’t usually buy this magazine, but this was an easy way to relieve me of…

Went for a stroll around Dunham yesterday but this time minus grandson Seb. It was a pleasure to do a circuit of the park and in particular see the herd of deer just being fed by one of the rangers. There must have been around sixty or so animals in the vicinity but the ranger said there was about a further fifty in other parts of the park.

He informed us that the deer were very healthy and somewhat “fat” as they had gorged on the abundance of acorns produced this year. Indeed, they were considering cutting back the food for the deer to get them into better condition. Many of the females were pregnant and looked very healthy.

Many of the older deer were not disturbed by human presence whereas the younger ones galloped away as we approached. The older deer will often feed from peoples hands in the…

On the way to Ferrybridge for coffee this morning a Eurasian Sparrowhawk flew over the harbour at Weymouth. On the rising tide, a flock of 25 Ringed Plovers together with 3 Ruddy Turnstone and a single Dunlin were feeding on the mudflats. There were only 6 Brent Geese today and a scan through the gulls revealed 4 species but no Mediterranean Gull. There was still a good number of Red-breasted Merganser present. Two Rooks were rather a surprise visitor and a Eurasian Skylark was heard singing.

Ringed Plover

On the way back to our cottage we dropped in at Lodmoor where we flushed a Kingfisher as we approached the viewpoint. Once again there were good numbers of Common Snipe along with Lapwing and Black-tailed Godwits. A single Mediterranean Gull was present with the other Gulls.

Don’t panic, I’m not going to try and master the English language by debating the correct plural for a Janus, but it does leave a minor dilemma when you’re dealing with them in multiple!

Anyhow, the announcement a while back that Oxford Rail were planning to produce a Janus diesel cane as very welcome news here at OTCM towers, we are big fans of the class and, as probably the most typical steelworks loco going, I was on the verge of commissioning someone to build a couple from the rather excellent Judith Edge kit. We don’t normally do chequebook modelling here but I’ve done etched brass kits, and, while they look OK I get zero pleasure from building them and someone else can do a much better job so I’d rather focus on being able to spend my time building something I actually enjoy…